In Oberndorf on Sunday evening around 5 p.m. a car crashed into the Salzach on the Austrian side. According to the current state of investigation, the car with three people should have left the quay on the northern outskirts of the city and touched a wooden and steel railing on the embankment, whereupon it rolled backwards into the water, was carried away and sank in the middle of the river. The accident may have happened without outside influence.
Four local water rescue services and the North diving platoon of the Salzburg regional association, together with numerous fire brigades and police units on the Austrian and German sides and the German water rescue service, managed to rescue the crashed vehicle from the Salzach.
The rescue workers, an emergency medical team and the ÖAMTC air rescue tried in vain to reanimate the three occupants, two adults and a two-year-old child, on the river bank. All three died at the scene of the accident. No other people are missing at this time.
The course of the accident is still unclear
According to the current state of knowledge and according to information from the water rescue service, the victims of the accident are a Syrian family who were probably heading towards St. Georgen. Why the car left the road with little traffic remains unclear for the time being.
The helpers present suspected to the ORF that the two adults and the small child were already dead before the rescue workers arrived, after they had been floating in the ice-cold water of the Salzach for about an hour. The accident car was recovered on Sunday evening, the police investigation to clarify the course of the accident is in full swing. Water rescue and police were unable to provide any further information shortly after 8 p.m.